A group of college students who work as teaching assistants and part-time employees at a Taipei university yesterday staged a demonstration outside the Ministry of Labor building in protest against tertiary institutes that fail to pay students’ salaries on time, which they say has caused them great trouble as they struggle to cover their living expenses.
The protesters demanded the ministry penalize these schools according to Article 79 of the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法).
The protesters alleged that their school, Shih Hsin University, has been delaying paying their wages by at least one month, and sometimes even up to two months, since the current semester began in September.
Photo: CNA
The recurring delays have caused them serious inconvenience, as it is impossible for the students to hold additional part-time jobs off-campus, given that they need to find time to study.
The situation is especially dire for students from lower-income families, they said.
Shih Hsin University student Tseng Fu-chaun (曾福全) said the school on Aug. 1 provided students who work as teaching assistants with labor insurance, meaning that a formal contract has been struck between the faculty and students; therefore, the school should stop putting off paying its employees.
“To make matters worse, professors often make us assistants work overtime with no pay, or attend to tasks that we had never agreed to undertake,” he said.
Another student, surnamed Chen (陳), said the students have repeatedly asked school administrators when they would be paid, but were never given any definite answers.
“Although our superiors at the faculties where we work had submitted our attendance records to the accounting and other offices who do the paperwork earlier in the month in the hope that we would be paid on time, that did not improve the situation at all,” she said.
The students said their monthly salaries range from NT$5,000 to NT$7,000.
Taiwan Higher Education Union executive secretary Hu Ching-ya (胡清雅) called on the ministry to launch a thorough investigation of tertiary institutes that have a record of delaying paying students’ salaries.
She also highlighted the problem that institutes sometimes hire students as part-time employees, but do not offer them labor insurance, adding that the union has been urging the ministry to investigate these schools since November last year, but has only received investigation results on one case.
Department of Labor Standards and Equal Employment division head Chiang Yan-ping (江衍平) initially denied the students entry to the ministry — where a phalanx of police officers formed a blockade with their riot shields before the event began — to file their grievances.
He later said he would make “mental notes” of the students’ complaints, then attempted to write them down on a leaflet distributed by the students, igniting the fury of the protesters.
The students were finally allowed access to the ministry after about 30 minutes.
Measures have been taken to minimize damage from Chinese espionage, the Ministry of National Defense said on Monday, in response to an alleged plan to deliver a Chinook helicopter to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The Chinese-language CTWANT magazine earlier in the day reported that a lieutenant colonel surnamed Hsieh (謝) was approached by Chinese officers with an offer to evacuate his family to Thailand in the event of a cross-strait conflict. In exchange, Hsieh was asked to fly a CH-47F Chinook helicopter to a Chinese aircraft carrier in the Taiwan Strait, the magazine said. Hsieh initially declined, but accepted after he was
SAFETY IN REGULATION: The proposal states that Chiayi should assess whether it is viable to establish such a district and draft rules to protect clients and sex workers The Chiayi City Council passed a motion yesterday to assess the viability of establishing a regulated red-light district. The council yesterday held its last session of the year, at which its fiscal 2024 budget was approved, along with 61 other proposals. The proposal to assess the viability of establishing a red-light district was put forward by independent Chiayi City Councilor Molly Yen (顏色不分藍綠支持性專區顏色田慎節). The proposal cited 2011 amendments to the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), which stipulate that city and county governments can pass autonomous regulations on the sex trade to manage the industry and guarantee industry workers’ rights. A ban on the
STABILITY AND CHANGE: Flagging in recent polls, Ko this week pledged to maintain President Tsai’s foreign policy, with an emphasis on improving China relations Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday reiterated that he is “deep-green at heart” in response to accusations that he is pivoting his campaign to align closer with the ideology of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the face of flagging polls. Ko made the remark at an agricultural policy conference in Taipei, repeating his comments from an interview with CTS News a day earlier. Ko told the CTS host that he would continue to pursue President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) national defense and foreign policy in general, but with an emphasis on establishing a rapport with
CHINA illness surge: Of 88 travelers from China, Hong Kong and Macau with respiratory symptoms who were encouraged to get tested upon arrival, 70.6% had the flu Two hundred and sixty people with COVID-19 were hospitalized and 31 deaths related to the virus were reported last week — the highest numbers in four weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that cases are expected to peak next month. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said that of the 260 people hospitalized last week with moderate to severe COVID-19, 98 percent had not received the Omicron XBB.1.5-adapted COVID-19 vaccine. Among the people hospitalized this year, 78 percent were aged 65 or older, while most of the those who were hospitalized or died have or had